After the “serious” archeological stop of Olympia, Santorini is somewhat lightweight. It is a very pretty island, but like a starlet, it has little more to offer than its good looks…yet that can be reason enough to love it…
This is one of the islands that cannot allow ships to dock so we dropped anchor further out and used tenders to get to shore. This is a tedious procedure as you waste a lot of time waiting …especially if you end up in the last one back, and one passenger is missing. (Yes they DO keep tabs on everyone). As it happens this was a passenger with dual “citizenship” meaning that he had 2 ID cards and had used one when he got off the ship and a different one when he came back on board…
But back to our pretty island: Santorini is essentially what remains of the largest volcanic eruptions the planet has ever seen: the Minoan eruption. It destroyed the earliest settlements on what was formerly a single island, and lead to the creation of the current geological caldera, a giant central lagoon, more or less rectangular, and measuring about 12 km by 7 km (8 mi by 4 mi), surrounded by 300 m (984 ft) high steep cliffs on three sides.
There are 3 ways to get to the capital Fira on the top, either you walk up, or you ride the cable care, or you hop on a donkey.
The views as you ride up are enchanting. (I took the cable car…)
Whether you look up or down, towards the sea or towards the mountain, you are blinded by the sparkling blue of the water and the white of the buildings with their bright blue roofs.
This church is a landmark of the island…
You climb the streets of Fira rather than walk them, and you come across views like these:
We drove out to a vineyard that offered this view of a more rugged side of the island. The circle in the water marks the spot where a ship sank last year. It had made the news back home, as there was a group of Canadian students aboard. None of them perished but a French tourist did.
We also drove out to the black sand beach of Kamari, a popular tourist village. I was not impressed and much prefer the white sand of the Caribbean…but it was easy to picture the numerous terraces, and restaurants buzzing with people.
They say that Santorini sunsets are among some of the most beautiful in the world. I don’t know about that but the one we saw was very nice.
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